Last Sunday morning Roy Hodgson was only the manager of West Bromwich Albion, contemplating perhaps the possibility of extending his contract at the Hawthorns and the holiday he had promised his wife, Sheila, on a rare summer off from service either in the dugout or as a member of Uefa's technical study group at the European Championship.

Five days later, after receiving a telephone call from his chairman, Jeremy Peace, at 2pm on his day off and nearly 24 hours after his Albion team were held to a goalless draw by Aston Villa, he has been interviewed for the England manager's job; left Wembley with a Bonfire Night's worth of flashes penetrating the tinted windows of his chauffeured car; appointed on a four-year contract to the job he has painstakingly striven for since beginning his coaching career; posed for the traditional cheesy photographs alongside England shirts, a blown-up badge and pitchside with the arch towering above him; been monstered for the crime of not being Harry Redknapp; deftly picked his way through a minefield of loaded questions; and seen himself crassly mocked on the front page of the country's bestselling daily by people who think the word "banter" pardons all sins.

If that was enough excitement to satisfy even Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero of his favourite John Updike novel, Rabbit, Run, there was more to come. Yesterday Liverpool announced that the termination of his contract in January 2011 after an ill-fated 191 days in charge at Anfield had contributed to the £8.4m the club had paid to former employees as golden goodbyes during that financial year. It is believed Hodgson received about £7.5m in a settlement of his three-year deal, a figure that has no doubt helped to instigate his elevation on The Sunday Times rich list, which is published at the weekend, into ninth place on its ranking of the wealthiest football managers – with a personal fortune estimated to be worth £11m.

Meanwhile The Sun responded to a Football Association complaint by accusing the governing body and those who protested about it to the Press Complaints Commission of having "a sense of humour failure" also solicited the opinion of Jonathan Ross, whose pronunciation of the letter R echoes Hodgson's. Ross said that it was "not a big deal".

"He will take it as a joke," he continued. "Everyone knows the Sun has a cheeky sense of humour." On Twitter, however, Ross wrote more: "It just shows them in a bad light. But it was clearly a joke, albeit an obvious and rather unfunny one." Strangely enough, that tweet did not appear among some of his other ones in the story.

On his appointment it was pointed out that the players had hardly been effusive in their praise of the new England manager, as several of them had been when getting behind the candidacy of Redknapp back in February, but as the week progressed approval has begun to trickle through.

Jack Wilshere was the first to offer his backing and best wishes and Hodgson's former Liverpool players, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, soon signalled their support. It may be that England's other prolific tweeters are underwhelmed by the FA's choice but there may also be a certain reticence in portraying themselves as brown-nosers, at least until they are asked a direct question.

Hodgson has a backroom staff to recruit, the preparations of Stuart Pearce to assess, opponents to study and a squad to select but on Sunday he returns to earth with a bang when he takes West Bromwich Albion to the Reebok to play Bolton. They kick off at 2pm, precisely a week after he took the call that has changed the life of this most grounded of men and managers.